South African Collectors’ Society

Gawie Hugo is Chairman of the Paarlse Filateliste Vereniging (Paarl Philatelic Society) and the newly elected President of the PFSA (Philatelic Federation of South Africa). As his name suggests he is an Afrikaner of Huguenot stock. He lives in Worcester and is in charge of organising the 2025 South African National Stamp Show to be held in nearby Paarl (2nd – 6th September 2025).

Steve Hannath took the opportuniuty to join Gawie and his daughter Ilse in London to enjoy some Saturday stamping while polishing up his Afrikaans. We had three philatelic experiences that day starting with the Charing Cross Collectors’ Market.

Charing Cross Collectors’ Market.

I agreed to meet Gawie at the Charing Cross Collectors’ market held in the underground car park below Embankment Tube Station at about 10 am. This stamp and coin market is open every Saturday morning and worth a quick visit when in London. How long it will continue is anybody’s guess. In its heyday in the 1990s I was a familiar face every Saturday for 8 years, sometimes getting there at 6.30 am in order to be the first to plunder the 4p a stamp albums and to snap up other bargains in SA philately. Sadly ‘Postmark Pete’ usually beat me to it.

There has been a market at Charing Cross since 1690. It was a vegetable market until Charing Cross Station was built on the site in 1864. With the growth of stamp collecting as a popular hobby Stanley Gibbons opened an office at 435 Strand which became the ‘Mecca’ for British philatelists. Soon other stamp dealers opened shops in the area. By 1974 stamp dealers also occupied the historic arches below Charing Cross Station. When the station was redveloped in 1980, the dealers were forced out but promised that a Charing Cross Collectors’ Market would be allowed every Saturday in the basement car park for the sale of stamps, coins, postcards, militaria and ephemera.

Exiting Embankment Tube Station I left the warm autumn sunshine behind and descended the spiral staircase into a well-lit underground car park. I had not met Gawie previously but I had seen his photo in STAMP SA. (It’s good to have this publication as a means of staying in touch!) As luck would have it, I spotted Gawie immediately despite the absence of his gold chain of office. He was stooping over a table going through stamps on loose sheets of paper with the assistance of Ilse, his daughter.

“Meneer Hugo?” I asked the man bending over the table. He immediately stood bolt upright and laughed cheerily. “Ja. Steve? Hullo! You found me.” It was a good start that got better as the day wore on. Ilse, his daughter, was all sweetness and light, a gentle joy to be with. I thoroughly enjoyed myself on the day. I hope they did too.

Charing Cross market has changed a lot since I last visited it in 2012.There are now less stamp dealers and more coin and militaria dealers. The quantity and quality of the stamps on offer is not the same as in the past but interesting items can be found by those prepared to look. Sadly, the 4p stamp albums are now 20p. It was not the ideal stamp venue to take a visiting dignatory to but in the absence of anywhere else to go in London its convenient central location and its prices appropriate to anyone on a budget made it a practical meeting point. We both found a few nice bits and pieces but nothing stellar. The coffee and biscuits were free and much appreciated.

I found a postcard for my ‘Beaches of the Cape Peninsula” display cancelled ’17 SEP 23’. This bore 4d worth of Kings Head postage. Importantly, it showed Glen Beach in the foreground before Camps Bay got built up. I also found an undated maritime cover, circa 1938, with a ‘M.V. CITY OF NEW YORK AMERICAN SOUTH AFRICAN LINE’ postmark for my nascent (still in a box) ‘Paquebot Marks’ display. I could not resist paying £1 for an attractive if off-centred QV Transvaal 1d with triple circle numeral 1 (PRETORIA) obliterator and a similarly priced KVII 5/- used in 1910 from ‘CANTONMENTS POTCHEFSTROOM’ (not ‘T’) for my ‘Postmarks of the Imperial Garrison’ display. This was probably used on a parcel or a telegram form.

Gawie found stamps on sheet for friends back home. As a motor car enhthusiast he had just returned from a visit to the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu and was pleased to find an attractive item of ephemera, a 1950s RAC membership card with photo. It would, he said “add extra interest to any display on motoring and motor cars”. I agreed.

After two or so hours we had trawled through all the dealers’ stock and decided to call it a day and head over to Stanley Gibbons in the Strand, a brisk five minute walk away. Ilse took a photo of us departing the Charing Cross Collectors market.

Stanley Gibbons / Strand Collectibles Group

By comparison Stanley Gibbons was and still is the holy of holies, a place of pilgrimage for British and visiting philatelists of the older generation. Stanley Gibbons, its founders lead the way in making the hobby of stamp collecting a viable commercial business in Britain. Most South African youngsters of my generation who collected stamps referenced a Gibbons catalogue, (in my case in the the library). The company became synonomous with British Empire and Commonwealth stamp collecting and even had an office in Johannesburg. As a result, Stanley Gibbons is the go-to destination for South African philatelists visiting London.

The Charing Cross Collectors market had been crowded compared to the Stanley Gibbons / Strand Collectibles Group premises at 399 Strand when we entered. Despite the bustling street outside, there were just three browsing customers inside when we arrived and they soon left. With Gibbons catalogue still ‘the Bible’ for many philatelists wanting to list stamps in order and to have some reference to their possible value, its income today comes as much from selling expensive catalogues and philatelic books as it does from stamps. Indeed, buying reference books was a large part of Gawie’s reason to visit Stanley Gibbons.

Entering the Stanley Gibbons shop is not unlike entering a cathedral. It has a quiet reverential air about it, one befitting a solitary hobby such as ours. Gawie broke the silence by asking if they stocked the Barefoo revenue catalogue. An aloof and rather unapologetic reply advised him that “Stanley Gibbons only sells its own publications”. Gawie then enquired about the availability of an Italian / Monaco stamp catalogue which Stanley Gibbons did stock. While he attempted to contact a friend in SA who had asked him to purchase this on his behalf, we took the opportunity to sit down while awaiting an answer. The centrepiece of Stanley Gibbons’ downstairs shop is a large stylised Cape of Good Hope Triangle, a suitable testament to how important this stamp was to the young Stanley Gibbons, then of Plymouth. His purchase of two sacks of Cape Triangles won by a sailor in a raffle in Cape Town transformed his fortunes and propelledhim into the best known brand name in global philately.

Sadly, Gawie’s friend in South Africa was not answering his phone and we left Stanley Gibbons shop empty-handed. Neither Gibbons nor Gawie benefitted from this visit. It was a disappointing result given the historic importance that Stanley Gibbons enjoyed.

I was now eager to start the next leg of the day’s adventure in the convivial Theodore Bullfrog pub in John Adams Street. A beer was not the main attraction. Duty called!

Aerophilately in the Pub

I had arranged to meet the daughter and grandson of Edgar Kinsey, SACS member 278. Mike Haley, the grandson and his mother Sandra, had discovered three albums in their loft and were intrigued about them and curious about Edgar’s involvement with SACS which he joined in 1954. A series of emails flowed between us which culminated with Gawie and I meeting Mike and Sandra Haley.

“We are keen to know more about his collection and what you may be able to tell us,” they said. These albums contained stamps, letters, airmail covers and news clippings collected in the 1950s and 60s.

SACS had just started a new website and theirs was the VERY FIRST enquiry we had received after it went live. With Mike keen to learn about his grandfather’s activities within SACS we used a new Search feature, one that is open to all, not just members, to find articles in old Springbok magazines from the 1950s and 60s that contained the word ‘Kinsey’. We learned that Mike’s grandfather Edgar was an active member of SACS who displayed material and contributed articles to The Springbok magazine on both SA stamps and postal history, the latter being his main collecting interest. It was obvious that Edgar was a passionate specialist collector of South African Aerophilately.

One pleasing and surprising coincidence of this online search was the discovery that Simon Peetoom, a philatelic dealer and our SACS Treasurer and Event Organiser, (and one of the chief motivators for a new website with a Search facility!), had purchased an ‘E. G. Kinsey Collection’ and written an appreciative article, ‘Highlights of the E. G. Kinsey Collection’, in the August 2019 issue of The Springbok. In this article Simon noted that his newly purchased collection had references to items that were missing. He correctly concluded that he had not bought all of Edgar’s collection.

Simon’s purchase of the ‘Kinsey Collection’ was news to the family who had no idea that one had existed previously. As far as they knew, the three albums found in their loft was all there was. The question we now asked ourselves was why had their three albums Mike had bough along for Gawie and I to examine been held back? As we went through them we both realised this collection was something special. I began to think that whoever sold the collection that Simon had bought, presumably Edgar himself, had decided this spectacular display of specialist aerophilately was too good to sell.

Simon’s article referenced finding “a certificate for the 1957 Paarl Exhibition, at which Mr Kinsey displayed”. According to his daughter Sandra he did not go to South Africa because she and her siblings caught measles at the last minute. What is remarkable about this is that Gawie is the convenor of Paarl 2025. I had no idea about any Paarl connection when I arranged for us to meet in a London pub and view her father’s newly discovered display. I only learned about it when I read Simon’s article while travelling down to London by train to meet them. This was synchronicity of a high order.

Below is one of the more ‘common’pages. I believe I have seen similar before!

This collection will be the subject of an article on this website shortly. Mike Haley has agreed in principle to the Edgar Kinsey Aerophilately collection being displayed at the next Kenilworth SACS meeting in 2025 subject to his business commitments.

I was hoping to surprise Gawie with this little bit of Saturday afternoon pub aerophilately. I believe I succeeded in delighting him. We parted with him expressing the view that it had been a good day and that he had seen something very special. SACS and the President of the PFSA now have more in common than before we met.

My next meeting is with Adel Bulpitt, President Pretoria Philatelic Society, who arrives in Cambridge on Friday to join us at the SACS Letchworth meeting the next day, Saturday 28th September. What magic awaits? I will keep you posted. (Electronically, of course!)